December 26, 2024 – At Sea – Off the Coast of Costa Rica – Cloudy – Rainy – 80F

Slept OK, I guess.

The porthole cam indicated that the day was gray and ugly and the seas were choppy.

Breakfast was in the Windows Café – today I had two eggs with my pancakes – the biggest challenge is finding a salt shaker that hasn’t been killed by the humidity.  The servers now carry toothpicks to free the openings in the shakers but that's only half the problem.  The salt is all caked. 

The pancakes that were very leathery and difficult to cut are now fluffy and delicious. New batter or better cooking process?

At 10 AM, Ellen and I both went to the Cabaret Lounge to hear Peter Ranelli talk about Continental Drift. The lecture was interesting – I knew all the background on Continental Drift but not the scientists involved.  It was a very science oriented lecture. Peter and I chatted for a few minutes before his talk.

Lunch was on the Sunset Veranda.  Along with my Corona Beer, I had a salad and a grilled Tuna wrap with onion rings.  Ellen had the chef make her a fettuccini with Alfredo Sauce since the item on the buffet was sprinkled with bacon.  The fettuccini was delicious – perhaps one of the best alfredos we have had on ships. 

We were back on the open deck – the weather started out nice

but there there were storms in the area and the ship was passing around them so we had great views of the sky but not getting wet.  It eventually did start to rain, which drove us inside. I am still reading “The Edge”. 

We went to hear Carolyn Harris talk about the Spanish Inquisition at 3 PM.  Ellen decided to go to the Den and I stayed for the whole talk.  Not an uplifting lecture. 

Carolyn finished at 3:50 PM so I set up very quickly for my 4 PM lecture on “Open Unsolved Cases: Forensic Genetic Genealogy”.  

I had made a few changes to improve clarity but I don’t think that worked so I am going to redo the talk again.  The presentation did not have the flow and pace I wanted it to have.  The concept of genetic matches is still not clear and will need work. It ran a little long due to the questions I got during the talk by some of the guests.  The Chanukah Candle Lighting followed me so, while they set up, I answered additional questions outside the theater. The turnout was good.

We talked to some folks from San Diego and it turns out Donald (a Bruin) runs a Jewish Newspaper and wanted to interview me.  We set up a time the next sea day.

The Chanukah candle lighting service was once again nice and interesting. The latkes today were a little different - they were purple because someone in the kitchen added beets to the mixture.  The donuts were also gone (now that's a shame because they were really good)

We went to the room so I could change my clothes for dinner but John was still working on the room so I stayed in my lecture stuff for dinner. The veranda was wet so we ate inside and much too close to people in a room with high people density already.

Tonight is “The Taste of Morocco” – which based on the last cruise meant nothing to eat.  We didn’t go to the Dining Room because it looked slammed and we were late again. I wound up eating some kind of rice and other rice like stuff.  I tried the vegan stew but the Beyond Meat has a funky taste.  Baklava was on the desert menu so we gave that a try.

After dinner, we went to the Theater for “Club Crooner”.  The songs were familiar (Frank Sinatra, etc.) and the dancing was OK – some of the vocals sounded harsh but that might have been the mic system.

We left early so we could get seats in The Den for Darren’s “Tunes and Croons” show. 

Darren did a good job singing the standards – he also did “The Impossible Dream” but the background music was really fast and he was racing to stay with it.  In the middle of the set he asked Lee to call the A/V people to do something to the sound system.  It seemed to be running OK and then it got worse – took a while to get it right and Darren just kept on singing. He, of course, got the crowd into it with “Sweet Caroline”.  He sounds a lot like Neil Diamond when he sings so that helped with his version.

Clocks move back on hour tonight to put on CST as we head to Puntarenas, Costa Rica.

Seas are smooth.